Night Offices
by icepixel
Summary: "Peter was in many ways her opposite, but at four in the morning, watching the Professor cobble together a radio from coconuts and bamboo on her television screen, they were more alike than different: both of them scarred and imperfect, but still whole."


**Note: **This is set a few years after the current (first) season.

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><p><em>A crash that shattered heaven and earth—sirens shrieking—faces half-obscured by surgical masks appearing and disappearing above—coming to in an unfamiliar room, her hands numb and the rest of her body on fire—<em>

Megan woke with an infant scream in her throat. She smothered it by sucking in a deep breath, at the same time willing her body, which had gone as stiff as any of her patients, to relax in the dimness of her bedroom. She pressed her palms against her sheet and pillow, intensely relieved to feel the texture of the cotton against her skin rather than the complete absence of sensation she had feared.

Her breath coming in short gasps now, she sat up and slipped her legs from under the covers, trying to avoid disturbing the man beside her. Peter was a light sleeper, though, and her attempt failed.

"Megan?" she heard him ask, not even a trace of sleepiness in his voice. He sat up, silhouetted in the yellow light of the street lamp that filtered through the curtained window. "You all right?"

"I'm fine," she said, glad it was too dark to make out anything beyond the most basic shapes. He certainly wouldn't have believed her words if he could see the grimace on her face. "I'm just going to get a glass of water. I'll be back in a minute." She grasped his shoulder, more grateful than she ever would have guessed just a few years ago for the feeling of his well-washed T-shirt under her fingers. "Go back to sleep."

She waited for him to lie back down, then stood and padded toward the kitchen, stopping in the bathroom to grab her thin silk robe. If she'd had any intention of returning to bed, she might have tried to stumble through the act of getting a glass and turning on the faucet by the artificial brightness of an urban night coming through the windows, but instead, she turned on a small lamp, glancing at the microwave's clock as she did. 4:06. Not so bad. Only two and a half more hours until the alarm was set to go off anyway.

Water in hand, she headed for the living room. A half-read issue of _Neurology_ lay open on the coffee table, but the thought of reading made her eyes cross preemptively. The power button on her laptop glowed steadily, beckoning her with e-mails that needed responses and case notes she could flesh into reports, but the idea made her stomach churn.

Television it was, then.

She settled cross-legged on the couch, draping her robe over her knees to ward off the early morning chill. Picking up the remote, she turned on the TV and immediately pressed the volume button, setting it to a level she could just barely hear, and that wouldn't wake Peter. The blue light of the screen washed over her, and she began to flick through the channels, her mind light-years away from what she was watching.

These times were one of the few reasons she even owned a TV, she reflected. After she dreamed of the accident, she needed something mindless to finish out the night with, when she was caught in the limbo between being too wired to sleep and too exhausted to keep her mind on anything productive. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears, the muscle still clenching and releasing faster than usual. The dream always had that effect. It was so vivid, as real as it had been when she'd lived it years ago.

There was the crash itself, of course, though there was little of it she remembered. What she'd never forget was the sound, that unearthly din of shattering glass and groaning, snapping metal as the truck slammed into her car. It had been pushed almost six feet sideways by the impact, the police had told her later.

She didn't remember being extracted from the wreckage; she'd come to briefly on the ride to the hospital, long enough to hear the sirens sounding, and then the pain that ripped through what felt like every muscle and bone in her body had sent her spiraling back into unconsciousness. In addition to the concussion which had led directly to her paresthsia, the accident had broken three fingers on her left hand and two on her right, snapped her left radius, cracked a handful of ribs, and caused a near-fatal amount of blood loss. She was, everyone suggested, lucky to be alive after the experience.

She'd next woken up in a single room, half her body encased in bandages and casts. Even with the painkillers she knew were dripping into her cephalic vein, her whole body ached. Her whole body except her hands, that was. From the wrists down, she felt nothing; not the sheet they were resting on, not the tape holding her broken fingers together, not even the pain that gnawed at the rest of her nerves.

Others might have been grateful just to be alive enough to feel pain and numbness, but she'd never been accused of being an optimist. Panic had swept through her then as she envisioned all the ways permanent numbness in the hands would change her life.

Her alarm grew worse when she realized that she was alone in the room—that no one had come to give her even the most cursory and impersonal of sympathy. The thought that Todd was still so embittered that he wouldn't even come see her, or let Lacey see her, after she'd nearly died was almost unbearable. She would have sobbed if doing so hadn't made her chest hurt even more; instead, she set her lips in a firm line and closed her eyes, the tears that had gathered burning wet tracks down her cheeks. Even the prickling, tingling sensation of feeling returning to her numbed hands didn't provide much relief.

Todd and Lacey had come, though; she didn't know it at the time, but they'd merely made a trip to the cafeteria, not expecting her to wake up for another few hours. Of course, if she had been in a state of mind to look around the room more carefully, she would have seen evidence of their presence: Lacey's backpack sitting beside one of the two chairs, Todd's suit jacket laying over the arm of the other. They returned just as she was attempting to use the sheet to wipe her face, finding it difficult to manipulate with five fingers out of commission.

Todd, whose usually impeccable tie was half-unknotted and whose shirt sleeves were rolled up, looked mortified to find her already awake, while Lacey just shouted, "Mommy!" and raced to the bed, all smiles at Megan's open eyes. Her daughter hadn't called her that for almost three years, preferring the more grown-up "Mom" since she'd started school.

Despite her tender ribs, Megan shifted a little and let Lacey climb up on the bed next to her, then had Todd hand her the chart at the foot of the bed. "We were worried," he said softly as he passed it to her, and for the moment, it had been enough.

While she read the dry, abbreviated account of all the damage and all that had been done to fix it, Lacey curled up next to her, and Todd stroked her hair, and for a few minutes, it was just like before, when they'd been—she thought—happy.

Of course, it hadn't lasted. That had been Todd's only visit, though he occasionally called to see how her recovery was going. Her mother came to see her sporadically both while she was in the hospital and after she'd been released, and to her credit she usually brought Lacey along. Her dream never gave her that relief, though; her subconscious liked to dwell on those first moments alone in the hospital room, when she thought she had lost everything.

For a while at least, it had turned out to be true.

A noise from behind startled her, drawing her eyes from the television. Peter stood at the entrance to the living room, squinting in the light. "I thought you were coming back to bed," he said.

She shrugged an apology. "Couldn't sleep."

He crossed the room silently and sat beside her, though she half-wished he wouldn't. Peter had a way of getting her to talk even when she was determined not to, and she didn't want to talk about this nightmare. She wanted to bury it with layers of infomercials and old movies until it disappeared for another six months.

Peter didn't say anything for a few minutes, but he put his arm around her shoulders, and she let herself lean against him, resting her head against his chest as they watched an extremely perky young woman exclaim about the benefits of an herbal remedy that could take off weight, improve moods, and apparently everything else up to and possibly including raise the dead.

Finally, he asked, "Bad dream?"

She muted the television. "Yep."

"The accident?"

"Mmm-hmm."

She'd expected him to prod—gently, but insistently, in that way he had that she still didn't understand the mechanics of—and was almost disappointed when he remained silent. Eventually, she said, "It used to be worse. I'd dream about it three, four times a week at first. Lately it's only two or three times a year." He squeezed her shoulder, silently encouraging her to continue. "It's the same every time. I keep hearing the impact, and I'm so terrified that this time I won't survive. Then I'm in the hospital, and my hands have gone numb."

"And after that, sleep's pretty much shot, huh?"

"Yeah."

The woman on the television had finished her spiel, and a dog running around in a blanket with sleeves had taken her place. Peter took the remote from her hand and changed the channel. "TV Land usually has an episode of _Gilligan's Island_ on right now. It's gotta be better than this."

She tilted her head and stared at him. "Why do you know this?"

He raised an eyebrow. "My version of that dream usually involves a 7-Eleven and a .38 slug."

Oh.

She remembered the first time she'd seen the scars on his shoulder, the one she was resting her head on now. She had gasped at the knots of white tissue revealed when she unbuttoned his shirt, at the time intent only on getting him out of his clothes as quickly as possible, because three years had surely been long enough to wait. ("Is there a race going on that I don't know about?" he'd asked, laughing, before kissing her, at the same time deftly unzipping her dress.) The entrance wound, almost half as big as her palm, had drawn her fingers like a magnet, and she'd traced the irregular lines and circles of it with astonishment and awe. Finally, he'd taken her hand and pulled her onto the bed. He'd spent the night reminding her that there was much more to him than a shoulder that was marred by injury and ached when it rained.

Peter was in many ways her opposite, but at four in the morning, watching the Professor cobble together a radio from coconuts and bamboo on her television screen, they were more alike than different: both of them scarred and imperfect, but still whole.

When the show went to a commercial, Megan kissed his shoulder. "You should go back to bed. You can still get another couple hours of sleep."

He smiled at her. "I can't leave now. They might make it off the island." She rolled her eyes. "Megan," he said, twining his fingers in the messy locks of hair which lay on her shoulder. "I don't mind. Really."

She pressed her lips together, feeling unaccountably nervous. She wanted to take him at his word. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

She laid her head on his chest again, this time curling her whole body into his. He pressed his lips to her forehead, his beard scratching lightly against her skin. The castaways kept them company as they passed the hours until dawn.


End file.
